Billionaire warns of growing class conflict in US

Jerry White

With the stock markets soaring and corporate America celebrating a massive tax cut, there are increasing warnings from some business circles that the immense level of inequality is generating deep social discontent.

In an interview published in the Wall Street Journal last week, Ray Dalio, who manages the world’s largest hedge fund, Bridgewater Associates, warned that “elevated stock valuations” had not translated into higher long-term economic growth, let alone improvements for the bottom 60 percent of the population. This layer of the population, he said, lacked any savings, suffered a higher percentage of premature deaths, and had children destined to earn less than their parents.

“His biggest worry,” the Journal declared, “is that lower corporate taxes and higher stock prices do nothing for the bottom 60% of households who own almost no assets and whose stagnant wages are the mirror image of expanding profit margins, feeding resentment and political polarization. Says Mr. Dalio: ‘If we do have an economic downturn, I worry we will be at each other’s throats.’”

Dalio, who has a net worth of $17 billion, is no social reformer. In 2004, he infamously summed up the parasitic character of the social layer of which he is part by saying, “The money that’s made from manufacturing stuff is a pittance in comparison to the amount of money made from shuffling money around.” His warnings will have no serious effect on the financial oligarchy, which is demanding austerity measures, tax cuts and deregulation.

A decade after the global financial crash, the financial aristocracy in the US and around the world is flush with cash from government bailouts and the near-zero interest rate policies of the world’s central banks. This has fueled the unprecedented stock market rise, which added $1 trillion to the personal fortunes of the world’s 500 richest billionaires in 2017.

A new survey of workers at 5,000 large employers by global advisory firm Willis Towers Watson found that two-thirds “were feeling more on edge than they did in 2015” due to stagnant wages and higher household debt. Fifty-one percent reported suffering a “significant financial event” in the past two years, including a major medical expense. Ten percent of workers reported taking a loan from their 401(k) retirement funds.

Despite supposed “full employment” in the US—with the official jobless rate at the lowest level in 17 years—wages only rose about 2.5 percent in 2017, barely above the official rate of inflation of 2.0 percent. This is well below the annual increases of between 3.3 and 3.6 percent before the Great Recession.

An analysis compiled by Bloomberg News of 665 contracts signed in late December showed first-year pay raises averaging 2.7 percent for workers overall, 2.5 percent for manufacturing workers and only 2.1 percent for government workers.

Analysts have warned that Trump’s sharp reduction in corporate taxes will encourage workers to demand significant wage improvements in 2018. Hundreds of thousands of workers in the trucking, warehouse, telecom, health care and entertainment industries have labor agreements expiring this year, according to Bloomberg.

These include:

* The contracts covering nearly 3,000 employees at Allina Health hospitals throughout Minnesota and 3,000 employees of Abbott Northwest Hospital in St. Paul, Minnesota, members of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), expire on February 28. Nearly 5,000 nurses conducted a month-long strike at Allina in 2016.

* The Teamsters contract covering 7,500 workers at ABF Freight Systems in multiple states expires on March 31.

* Contracts covering 5,000 workers, members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, expire March 4 at Lockheed Martin plants in Georgia and California.

* The contract for 4,500 members of the United Auto Workers at Daimler Truck plants in North Carolina expires in mid-April.

* Several contracts covering 40,000 hospitality and casino workers in Las Vegas expire in May.

* The contract covering 132,000 television workers, members of SAG-AFTRA, ends June 30.

* An agreement covering 43,000 members of the International Association of Theatrical State Employees expires with Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers on July 31.

* 230,000 United Parcel Service workers, members of the Teamsters, will see their contract with the giant package delivery company expire on July 31.

* The contract covering 200,000 United Post Office Service workers, members of the American Postal Workers Union (APWU), expires on September 20.

After decades of falling real wages, workers are determined to recoup lost income from companies making record profits. “I think everyone’s going to have their hand out when it comes to the potential benefit of the tax bill,” UPS spokesman Steve Gaut told Bloomberg. “Certainly investors are going to expect to benefit,” he added.

UPS made $5 billion in the first three quarters of 2017, after a profit of $3.4 billion in 2016. Corporations will use their tax windfall not to improve conditions for workers, but for stock repurchase programs and dividend payouts to wealthy investors, and to increase mergers and acquisitions, which will result in greater attacks on the jobs, wages and pensions.

The employers are counting on the continued collusion of the Teamsters and other unions. Faced with the danger of a “wages push” in 2015-2016, President Obama called in the leaders of the unions for a White House meeting in July 2015. The result was the sabotage of any unified struggle, the signing of sellout deals barely above the rate of inflation, and the isolation and betrayal of strikes the unions were forced to call, including by oil refinery workers, Allegheny Technology steelworkers and Verizon workers.

The 10-year period between 2007 to 2016 saw the lowest number of major work stoppages since the US Bureau of Labor Statistics began collecting data in 1947, with an average of only 14 per year. This compares to an average of 145 per year in 1977-1986, 332 in 1967-1976 and 344 in 1947-1956. Last year, there were only eight major strikes—with half lasting fewer than three days—the lowest annual number since 2009, when there were only five.

The financial orgy on Wall Street has been made possible by the artificial suppression of the class struggle by the unions. Class antagonisms, however, have only grown more intense during this period, guaranteeing that they erupt more explosively, and encompass the widest layers of the working class.

The 2015 rebellion by autoworkers against the United Auto Workers union demonstrated the weakening grip of the union bureaucracy, which is thoroughly discredited after decades of collusion with the auto bosses and the exposure of widespread corporate bribes funneled through labor-management training centers and phony charities. The contracts for 150,000 autoworkers will expire in September 2019.

The New Year has begun with signs of growing class conflict internationally, including demonstrations by workers and young people in Iran opposing price hikes and austerity; strikes and protests by Israeli pharmaceutical workers; and Jerusalem municipal employees against mass layoffs.

In Germany this week, workers are conducting limited strikes at VW, Porsche, Siemens and other corporations, as 3.9 million auto, steel and engineering workers face the expiration of a wage contract at the end of the month. This follows the wildcat strike by Romanian autoworkers at Ford’s Craiova plant in late December.

In France, autoworkers and other workers are confronting the government of Emmanuel Macron, “the president of the rich,” who has unilaterally imposed American-style labor “reforms” to facilitate the firing of workers and vastly expand the use of part-time and temporary labor. In England, rail workers are continuing walkouts against the elimination of conductors pushed by the Tory government and its Labour Party allies.

On January 3, a wildcat strike by an airport ground crew in Buenos Aires followed strikes by subway workers and others in Argentina.

These struggles are increasingly pitting workers against employers, the corporate-controlled governments that defend them, and the pro-capitalist and nationalist unions. Increasingly, workers are being driven to coordinate their struggles against the global corporations and banks on an international scale.

To take this struggle forward, workers will have to break with the pro-capitalist unions and build new organizations controlled by rank-and-file workers based on the methods of the class struggle, not class collaboration. Such a struggle must be linked up with the building of a new revolutionary leadership in the working class, to fight for workers’ power, the seizure of the ill-gotten gains of the financial aristocracy and the socialist reorganization of economic life.

US to deport 262,000 Salvadoran immigrants

Patrick Martin

The US Department of Homeland Security announced Monday that it is terminating Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for more than a quarter-million immigrants from El Salvador. The immigrants, a large majority of them poorer workers, have 18 months, until September 9, 2019, to leave the US or be arrested and deported.

Including the roughly 190,000 children of the 262,000 Salvadoran TPS recipients, the total population immediately affected is larger than the population of a city the size of Toledo, Ohio or New Orleans, Louisiana. Rounding up the TPS recipients for deportation will require Gestapo-type operations in the Washington DC metropolitan area, where 50,000 Salvadoran TPS recipients live; Los Angeles, where 40,000 live; and Houston and New York City, where a combined 50,000 reside.

The Salvadorans are the largest single group covered by the TPS program, under which the DHS secretary may allow people fleeing natural disasters or civil wars to stay in the United States for more extended periods of time than under traditional refugee status.

The Salvadoran TPS recipients constitute a significant section of the working class in the US, where most have put down deep roots. The average Salvadoran covered by TPS has been living in the US for 21 years. Those now facing deportation are primarily of middle age and have lived here for most of their adult lives. By one estimate, removing these workers will slash the US gross domestic product by nearly $110 billion over the next 10 years.

Some 190,000 were admitted before 1994 and all 262,000 entered the country before 2001, when several major earthquakes devastated El Salvador. Tens of thousands escaped the civil war that ravaged the country from 1980 to 1992, during which US-backed death squads razed villages and massacred the population, including the estimated 1,200 peasants murdered in the village of El Mozote 37 years ago last month in what is known as El Salvador’s My Lai.

The move is a death sentence for hundreds or even thousands of those who will be sent back to a country with one of the highest murder rates in the world, dominated by criminal drug gangs that operate with impunity, protected by a corrupt military that rakes in money from both narcotics trafficking and US military aid. According to a 2015 report in the Guardian, dozens of deported Salvadorans were murdered after being deported by Obama in 2014-2015 alone.

The decision to terminate TPS for Salvadorans signals the Trump administration’s determination to put an end to the program entirely. Previously, DHS Acting Secretary Elaine Duke terminated TPS for 2,500 immigrants from Nicaragua, giving them until January 5, 2019 to leave the United States, and for 57,000 immigrants from Haiti, whose TPS status is set to expire July 22, 2019.

But equal responsibility for the move lies with the Democratic Party, which paved the way for Trump’s mass deportation program during the Obama administration. President Obama deported 2.7 million immigrants, including hundreds of thousands when the Democratic Party controlled Congress in the first years of his administration.

This makes the phony statements of support for immigrants by leading Democrats all the more cynical. Barack Obama jailed tens of thousands of Salvadoran children and their mothers who crossed into the US during a flare-up of Central American violence in 2014.

As for Trump’s request for $15 billion more in funding for border “security,” the Democratic Party has long embraced the militarization of the border and has made clear it will back the allocation of additional billions to increase what is already a small army of border police and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

The Democrats’ opposition to Trump’s demand for $18 billion to build a physical wall along the US-Mexico border is a political maneuver to divert attention from their basic agreement on stepping up the war against undocumented workers.

When the precursor to Trump’s wall was first proposed in the 2006 Secure Fence Act, signed into law by President George W. Bush, top Senate Democrats backed it, including then-senators Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Joseph Biden, as well as Charles Schumer, now the Senate Democratic leader. As a result of this and other bipartisan border militarization measures, up to 27,000 immigrants have died crossing the desert in the last 20 years.

In 2013, the Democrats agreed to spend $40 billion on border security, doubling the number of Border Patrol agents to 40,000 and expanding the use of high-tech surveillance equipment, including sensors and drones. The Democrats also agreed to eliminate the visa lottery, exclude siblings of US citizens from family reunification visas, and expand visa offerings based on education levels and work expertise, along the lines demanded by US corporations seeking highly skilled labor. The bill was voted down by the Republicans.

Today, they are proposing to go above and beyond their previous anti-immigrant pledges. The move to deport TPS recipients comes as the Democratic Party and Trump are engaged in Kabuki theater negotiations over the fate of 800,000 young people brought to the US as children who are enrolled in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program enacted during the Obama administration. Trump rescinded the DACA order, effective March 5, at which point mass roundups of former DACA recipients could begin, using the information they supplied to the government as part of their applications for DACA.

The White House is also demanding cuts in legal immigration as part of a “compromise” on DACA, including the elimination of the visa lottery program and so-called “chain migration,” which allows US citizens and legal residents to sponsor family relations for entry.

Last week, Senator Schumer made clear in advance of talks on DACA that he supported further measures to militarize the US-Mexican border. Senator Bernie Sanders reiterated his support for stepped-up attacks on undocumented workers in an appearance Sunday on the ABC program “This Week.” Sanders declared that while he opposed Trump’s border wall, “I don’t think there’s anybody who disagrees that we need strong border security. If the president wants to work with us to make sure we have strong border security, let’s do that.”

Sanders, in line with the trade union bureaucracy, echoes Trump’s economic nationalism and pseudo-populist attempts to pit American workers against their class brothers and sisters in other countries.

The vast majority of Americans disagree with the anti-immigrant nationalism of Trump, with nine in 10 believing the government should give citizenship to immigrants who have lived in the US for a number of years. Mass protests broke out at airports across the country in January and February 2017 after Trump announced his initial travel ban. Since then, the Democratic Party has worked systematically to divert and suppress popular opposition to Trump’s anti-immigrant, pro-corporate and pro-war program. It has instead promoted reactionary, anti-democratic campaigns.

These include the so-called “Me Too” movement, which rejects basic democratic principles such as the presumption of innocence and due process in order to promote the feminism of privileged layers of the middle class; the anti-Russia campaign, which seeks to shift American foreign policy to an even more aggressive military posture against Russia; and the campaign against “fake news,” which is being used to justify censorship of the Internet and social media.

In December, the Supreme Court allowed a revised version of Trump’s travel ban to take effect shortly after House Democrats voted two-to-one against a move by a Democratic congressman to introduce articles of impeachment citing Trump’s mass deportation program.

Socialists reject the entire reactionary framework of the so-called “debate” over immigration “reform.” The Socialist Equality Party (SEP) rejects the position of Democrats and Republicans alike that undocumented workers are guilty of a crime and must be made to “pay” in one fashion or another for their supposed misdeeds.

The SEP upholds the right of workers from every corner of the globe to live and work in whatever country they choose with full citizenship rights, including the right to return to their home countries without the threat of being barred from re-entry to the US and being separated from their families.

The total number of people who work in the same factories, construction sites and other industries alongside the 262,000 Salvadoran TPS recipients number in the millions or tens of millions. The attack on them is an attack on the entire working class.

Only the power of the working class—united across race and nationality—can block the drive to destroy the lives of hundreds of thousands of Salvadoran workers living in the US.

A Human Security Approach to Nuclear Disarmament

Shivani Singh


Despite the best intentions of nuclear disarmament groups, failure to adopt norms surrounding human security in disarmament has proved to be a major impediment in achieving concrete progress. Why is the human security approach needed in nuclear disarmament? Why has it taken a backseat to a country's military and strategic considerations? How can human security norms be built into the nuclear disarmament discourse? 

Human security studies deal with the merging of traditional and non-traditional threats to security, narrowing down the analysis to the unit level where the individual is the subject matter of the debate. 

For any use or threat of use of nuclear weapons against an adversary state, it is ultimately human lives that stand at the receiving end. The very nature of nuclear weapons defies distinctions between combatants and non-combatants in a state of war. Considering the exorbitant risk attached with the possible usage of a weapon that is technically never meant to be used, the costs fail to match the benefits. 

The risks to human lives are not only limited to the actual use of a nuclear weapon but in fact span the production, stockpiling and transfer of nuclear weapons and fissile material. Exposure to nuclear radiation while cleaning radioactive leaks and spills, uncertainty regarding the extent of genetic mutation among populations that neighbour reactors and testing grounds, and the potential for disasters at the site of a nuclear reactor are some of the inadvertent yet crucial consequences of maintaining a nuclear arsenal. 

Any discussion therefore that accounts for traditional, state-centric conceptions of security must also focus on individual, human security. After all, what is it exactly that nuclear weapons are supposed to secure? Whose security are they prioritising? 

The human security approach becomes all important in dealing with nuclear disarmament given the scale at which nuclear weapons can affect human lives. This approach does not de-prioritise the state - instead, it complements state security and works in tandem to attain the goal of nuclear disarmament. 

The place of norms surrounding human security, however, has been rather precarious. States still see nuclear weapons as intrinsically linked and even synonymous with their national security, focusing on the strategic and military considerations rather than - or in tandem with - humanitarian or ethical concerns. 

The reason is two-fold. Firstly, there is an inherent power struggle that emerges from the systemic realities of the international system. Nuclear weapons are validated by the understanding that striving for power is the ultimate aim for any state - their possession provide states with defensive (and offensive) power to ensure their survival. This power-seeking behaviour gives rise to the notion of security that gives precedence to protecting borders and maintaining the status quo over ensuring the survival of its citizens. 

Secondly, the international system is plagued by innate trust deficits that motivate states to adopt security-centric approaches while formulating national security strategies. A result of this trust deficit is the logic of nuclear deterrence which is based on the principle of mutually assured destruction. Deterrence, through repeated articulation, has become the norm, thus convincing states to nuclearise in order to survive. 

The problem, however, is in the very rationale of nuclear deterrence theory which encourages a spiralling arms race. In fact, what deterrence promises is a heightened state of fear to maintain the status quo - that is, guaranteeing ‘security’ by perpetuating ‘insecurity’. 

Since human security norms in nuclear disarmament are weak, the starting point in any norm-building exercise would be to explore ‘security’ from a humanitarian lens rather than solely viewing nuclear weapons as symbols of power and prestige. This requires a paradigm shift towards using the individual as the proper referent of security rather than the state.

To this end, states like Austria and Japan have initiated efforts on international forums to emphasise the humanitarian initiative in nuclear disarmament. Treaties like the Mine Ban Treaty and Convention on Cluster Munitions have set a positive precedent in customary international law on armament policy by stigmatising the use of these associated weapons. These treaties can act as a guiding framework for successful norm-building around humanitarian considerations for nuclear disarmament. 

The traditional understanding of security must undergo a paradigm change in order to recognise the centrality of humanitarian considerations in nuclear disarmament, and subsequently incorporate them in national security strategies.

Kisii University-DAAD Msc and PhD Scholarships for African Students 2018/2019 – Kenya

Application Deadline: 9th February 2018 at 11:59 pm.

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: Kenyans or citizens of a sub Saharan African country.

To be taken at (country): Kisii University, Kenya

Eligible Field of Study: Applications are invited from qualified candidates for the award of DAAD Msc and PhD scholarship in the area of specialization of Fisheries.

About Scholarship: Kisii University offers DAAD In-Country/In-Region Scholarships for Postgraduate Studies, Eastern Africa 2018/2019. The awards are available for up to a maximum of two years (Master) and three years (Ph.D.) respectively.

Type: MSc and PhD degrees

Eligibility: The applicants must meet the following criteria for selection:

• they must have a minimum of upper second class or first class honours degree in fisheries or in a closely related biological sciences field of study for MSc scholarship.
• they must have a minimum of an Msc in Fisheries or in a closely related aquatic sciences field with above average grades for PhD Scholarship.
• The PhD proposals must demonstrate relevance to development, and MUST be free of any plagiarism.
• The candidates must have had their degree not more than six years ago.
• Candidates must be Kenyans or citizens of a sub Saharan African country.
• They must have proof of admission to the desired degree programme.
• The applicants must fulfil all the DAAD application requirements available in the Kisii University website: kisiiuniversity.ac.ke.
• Female candidates and candidates from less privileged regions or groups as well as candidates with disabilities are especially encouraged to apply.

Number of Scholarships:

• Msc Fisheries – 4 Scholarships
• PhD Fisheries – 2 Scholarships

Value of Scholarship:

• DAAD will pay tuition fees to the university according to the submitted fees structure and a monthly stipend to the scholarship holder, covering cost of living including accommodation.
• In addition, the scholarship holder will receive an annual study and research allowance. This allowance is intended to assist in covering of any costs related to the student’s research project. The annual study and research allowance is paid in local currency and is equivalent to the amount of EUR 230.00 for Master’s scholarship holders and EUR 920.00 for Ph.D. scholarship holders.
• Within the final year of studies, DAAD pays a lump sum of EUR 1,025.00 to the scholarship holder, where applicable (in local currency). This final allowance is granted to assist in covering of the thesis production costs in the last year of the course of studies (i.e. second year for Master students, third year for Ph.D. students).
• Please note that a DAAD scholarship is not a full scholarship. DAAD will only provide funding as stated above. It is not possible to apply for additional funding (e.g. laboratory, field work, conferences, technical equipment, books, travel, etc.)

Duration of Scholarship: This award will be available for a maximum of two years (for MSc), three years (for PhD). The scholarship is initially granted for one year and may be extended upon individual request and receipt of a complete application by using a form to be availed at the appropriate time in the DAAD Portal generally, this is from the month of April 2019.

How to Apply:

• Applications accompanied by a CV, required documents outlined in information sheet for scholars both in soft and hard copy should be sent to the coordinator Kisii University – DAAD scholarships Programme, Research and Extension Office, P.O Box 408-40200, Kisii. Email: research[at]kisiiuniversity.ac.ke.
• Only nominated candidates will be informed to apply for the DAAD Scholarships in the DAAD Portal.

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Scholarship Provider: German Academic Exchange Service – DAAD.

Government of Brunei Darussalam Scholarships for International Students 2018/2019

Application Deadline: 28th February 2018.

Offered annually? Yes

To be Taken at (university): 

• Universiti Brunei Darussalam (UBD),
• Universiti Islam Sultan Sharif Ali (UNISSA),
• Universiti Teknologi Brunei (UTB) and
• Politeknik Brunei (PB).

Fields of Study: These scholarships are awarded for pursuing undergraduate and postgraduate degree program in various disciplines offered by the UBD, UNISSA and ITB at different levels.

About the Award: Applications are invited for Brunei Darussalam Government Scholarships available for foreign students to study at University of Brunei Darussalam [UBD], Islam Sultan Sharif Ali University [UNISSA], Brunei Institute of Technology [ITB] and Politeknik  Brunei (PB) in Brunei. These scholarships are awarded to the students of ASEAN, OIC, Commonwealth Member Countries and others. Scholarship award is normally tenable for the duration of the programme.

Type: Undergraduate and postgraduate degrees

Eligibility:

• Applications are open to citizens of, but not limited to, ASEAN, Commonwealth and OIC member countries.
• Applicants should be nominated by their Government.
• Applicants must be certified to be medically fit to undertake the scholarship and to study in Brunei Darussalam, by a qualified medical practitioner who is registered with any Government Authority(ies) prior to arrival in Brunei Darussalam. Any and all costs incurred in obtaining this certification are to be borne by the applicant.
• Applicants must be, between the ages of 18-25 for undergraduate and diploma programmes and must not exceed the age of 35 for postgraduate programmes on the 31st July 2018.
• The award is NOT eligible to Brunei Darussalam Permanent Residents.

Number of Scholarships: Several

Value of Scholarship: The scholars are exempted from paying tuition fees and other appropriate compulsory fees as determined by the university for the duration of the programme.

One return economy class air-ticket for the most economically viable route to Brunei Darussalam will be determined by the Brunei Darussalam Government. No additional assistance will be provided towards other travel expenses.

Allowances payable will include:

• Monthly personal allowance of BND500.00
• Annual Book Allowance BND600.00
• Monthly food allowance of BND150.00
• Upon completion of the program, Baggage allowance to a maximum institution of BND250.00 to ASEAN region and BND500.00 to non ASEAN region.
• An accommodation at respective institution residential college is provided. If the scholar opts not to live in the provided accommodation, no additional allowance will be given in the lieu of board and transport.
• Outpatient medical and/or dental treatment is at any Brunei government hospitals, However an administrative charge is payable for each consultation with the government general practitioner or specialist.
• Should the scholar seek further medical or dental treatments at any private hospital or clinic, all expenses are to be borne by scholars themselves.

Duration of Scholarship: The scholarship award is normally tenable for the minimum period required to obtain the specific degree which is four years for a first degree with honours, one to two years for a master’s degree, three years for a doctoral degree at UBD, UNISSA and ITB, two and a half years for HND at ITB, three years for diploma of health sciences at UBD, all on a full time basis.

Eligible Countries: Students of ASEAN (Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Viet Nam), OIC (Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Benin, Brunei, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Comoros, Ivory Coast, Djibouti, Egypt, Gabon, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Libya, Malaysia, Maldives, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Suriname, Syria, Tajikistan, Togo, Tunisia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan and Yemen), Commonwealth Member Countries ((Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, Botswana, Cameroon, Cayman Islands, Dominica, Falkland Islands, Gambia, Ghana, Gibraltar, Grenada, Guyana, India, Jamaica, Kenya, Kiribati, Lesotho, Malawi, Malaysia, Maldives, Mauritius, Montserrat, Mozambique, Namibia, Nauru, Nigeria, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Rwanda, St Helena, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent and The Grenadines, Samoa, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Solomon Islands, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Swaziland, Tanzania, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Turks and Caicos Islands, Tuvalu, Uganda, Vanuatu, Virgin Islands (British) and Zambia) and others can apply for the scholarships.

How to Apply: Application forms can be downloaded from the following link:

APPLICATION FORM 2018-2019

• Application forms must be duly completed and endorsed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or the National Focal Point for scholarships of the applicant’s country.
• Applicants are required to also submit a security clearance statement from their National Security Agency(ies)/ Police Station (i.e. a statement/ report certifying that applicants are clear from any civil and criminal charges).
• Completed application forms are to be emailed to the following address:

applyBDGS2018@mfa.gov.bn

Applicants applying to Univeristi Brunei Darussalam must also complete an online application through https://apply.ubd.edu.bn/orbeon/uis-welcome/

Visit the scholarship webpage for details to apply

Provider: Brunei Darussalam Government

North Korea: The Deafening Silence around the Moon-Putin Plan

Joseph Essertier

“In the heart of appeasement there’s the fear of rejection, and in acts of fear there are mirrors of oppression.”

—Chris Jami

As the world hurtles ever closer to war in Asia, there is an Alice-in-Wonderland media narrative that has North Korea as the aggressor that must be controlled and punished at all costs. And in the face of that narrative, the deafening silence of intellectuals is starting to bear a remarkable resemblance to appeasement.

In 1938 one of the most heinous war criminals of the 20th century was planning to occupy Czechoslovakia, a country where about three million people of German origin lived. War seemed imminent as Hitler continued to make inflammatory speeches. The British prime minister Neville Chamberlain offered to go to Hitler’s retreat and discuss the situation personally. Chamberlain’s placatory efforts produced the Munich Agreement that he, Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, and Édouard Daladier signed, handing over a large chunk of Czechoslovakia to Germany. People in Czechoslovakia felt betrayed, but Chamberlain was praised. He told the British public he had achieved “peace with honor. I believe it is peace for our time.” In later years the lesson drawn from the Munich Agreement was that expansionist totalitarian states must not be appeased.

Today it would seem the very same farce is being re-enacted in a contemporary version of appeasement that Chamberlain would have envied. History demands that we ask all the academics, intellectuals, media and the like who claim to represent the left-to-liberal spectrum, why they are so unconcernedly complicit with the United Nations in appeasing the blood-thirsty Trump administration. Some parrot the Alice-in-Wonderland narrative concerning North Korea; many others remain silent.

The Moon-Putin Plan: One Possible Path To Peace

One could be forgiven for not having heard of it since it disrupts the standard “North-Korea-Problem” narrative, but there is a realistic solution to the crisis that liberal and progressive appeasers are keeping silent about. This is the Moon-Putin Plan unveiled in September in Vladivostok. President Moon outlined it as nine “bridges” of cooperation linking South Korea to Russia via North Korea—“gas, railroads, ports, electricity, a northern sea route, shipbuilding, jobs, agriculture, and fisheries.” Siberian oil and gas pipelines would be extended to Korea, both North and South, as well as to Japan. Both Koreas would be linked up with the vast rail networks of Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative, including high-speed rail, and the Eurasian Economic Union, which includes the Trans-Siberian Railway. In the words of Gavan McCormack, “North Korea would accept the security guarantee of the five (Japan included), refrain from any further nuclear or missile testing, shelve (‘freeze’) its existing programs and gain its longed for ‘normalization’ in the form of incorporation in regional groupings, the lifting of sanctions and normalized relations with its neighbour states, without surrender.” This Moon-Putin Plan has the potential to satisfy all the states involved, possibly even the US. One would think, “Done deal. Problem solved.” Yet mainstream journalists in Japan and English-speaking countries have largely ignored it, and even very few non-mainstream journalists have covered it.

Why should this be so?

US and UN Atrocities

Let us review a few facts about crimes committed on the Korean Peninsula, not only those of the US but also those of the UN, the post-WWII institution that admittedly has often provided at least some kind of forum for states to settle their differences in a rational and just manner. On 12 December 1948 the UN General Assembly declared that the Republic of Korea (i.e., South Korea) was the only lawful government on the Peninsula. This was UN Resolution 195, and it was one of the UN’s worst moments, a gross injustice to the bulk of the population and a cause of the Korean War.

First, Resolution 195 was a violation of the UN’s own charter (most obviously Article 32) since North Korea was never invited to discuss the dispute over who was the legitimate government on the Peninsula. Second, the position of the US State Department and the UN had originally been that the government of South Korea could only have jurisdiction over those areas where the UN Commission on Korea had observed elections, which was only in some parts of the South. Third, during the elections, even at those polling places where the UN had been watching, there were rightist police and fascist, terrorist youth groups all around the polling places, just as under the Japanese colonizers. And fourth, the new president Syngman Rhee (1875–1965) was a tyrant and his government was riddled with notorious collaborators who had served the Japanese colonizers. Koreans knew they were in for a repeat—same injustice, different masters. The UN had lent the government the legitimacy it needed.

Especially in places like Cheju Island, where people had built their own self-governing committees, the rigged elections on the mainland caused tremendous anger. The residents had had a taste of undemocratic policies of the American occupation, and the unfair elections were the last straw. Only after thousands of political murders and imprisonments could an election be held on Cheju Island, one year after the mainland elections. In May 1949 an American Embassy official reported that “the all-out guerrilla extermination campaign…came to a virtual end in April with order restored and most rebels and sympathizers killed, captured, or converted.”

In the Taejon (Daejeon) Massacre from the 2nd to the 6th of July 1950, American officials stood idly by and took photos while Korean police massacred 3,000 to 7,000 political prisoners—men, boys, and women. The UN Command was known at that time for hiding the truth, and unsurprisingly, the UN Commission on Korea did nothing to investigate.

Or consider that the US Air Force (USAF)’s horrific bombing campaign in the Korean War, under the aegis of the United Nations Command, constituted genocide. Neither the United Nation’s Genocide Convention approved in 1948 and going into effect in 1951, nor the Red Cross Convention on the Protection of Civilians in Wartime of 1948 had the “slightest impact on this air war” in the words of the American historian Bruce Cumings, who has covered the history thoroughly, from all sides of the War, including the various ways in which Americans abused Koreans, both North and South, as well as about the abundant lies in North Korean government propaganda.

The Problem of Class Inequality

There has long been extreme class inequality in Korea and it is no accident that President Syngman Rhee was on the side of the ruling class. For centuries Korea had not been a society where there was a fair distribution of wealth between the “unproductive class” and the class of “cultivators,” i.e., a society where “each class enjoys its proper share of the whole annual produce,” to borrow the language of Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations. But some of those from the old aristocratic elite had been in the process of finding ways to escape parasitism and modernize their country. Just when they were starting to make progress, “global depression, war, and ever-increasing Japanese repression in the 1930s destroyed much of this progress, turned many elite Koreans into collaborators, and left few options for patriots besides armed resistance.”

The Role of Collaborators

“Extreme rightist power” is how Governor Yu Hae-jin described to the US Military Government in Korea (USAMGIK) the people who helped him suppress democracy on Cheju Island. The “leaders who would subsequently shape ROK politics” had mostly collaborated with the agents of the Empire of Japan. (ROK = Republic of Korea). Those leaders were selected by one Col. Cecil Nist, who viewed them as “conservatives.” To give this group of mostly treacherous, non-patriots some credibility, the US Office of Strategic Services selected Syngman Rhee to give this group a veneer of legitimacy. A fluent speaker of English and a Christian convert, he had received years of indoctrination in higher education in the US, and although he had made efforts on behalf of Korean independence in his younger years, he was Washington’s man.

In contrast to WWII, where American soldiers and soldiers of most of the other UN Command states had fought against fascists, the war in Korea saw the US and UN using “extreme rightist power,” to fight against democracy. The Korean campaign represented a bizarre “vision of bringing freedom and liberty to a sordid dictatorship run by servants of Japanese imperialism.”

While it is true that the US has dominated the UN since its inception, especially during the Korean War, and while the UN Command forces were actually under the command of US generals, the UN Command also shares some of the responsibility for the many atrocities committed against Koreans. Can anyone really argue they have no responsibility to speak the truth about their conduct during the War? Rhee once described to an American reporter what he planned to do: “With bulldozers we will dig huge excavations and trenches, and fill them with Communists. Then cover them over.” Ironically, the UN appears comfortable with performing a similar act on its own past.

The Crimes of the UN Today

Some experts are now saying that war has already been declared on North Korea, a country that has yet to attack anyone. The UN has authorized UN member states to “interdict and inspect North Korean vessels in international waters (which amounts to a declaration of war),” according to Pepe Escobar. McCormack concurs, explaining that there is only a very fine line between the sanctions and “outright war.”

Gregory Elich writes, “U.S. officials are fanning out across the globe, seeking to cajole or threaten other nations to join the anti-DPRK crusade. Since most nations stand to lose far more by displeasing the U.S. than by ending a longstanding relationship with North Korea, the campaign is having an effect.”

And now Washington is talking about a “bloody nose” approach—hoping that we can just smash up their military equipment a little while they stand by and not attack Seoul.

According to the UN Food and Agricultural Organization, due to a drought that is worse than the one in 2001, the total harvest of staple crops such as rice, corn, potatoes, soybeans, wheat, and barley is far smaller than that of last year. Last month they reported, “Most households are anticipated to continue to experience borderline or poor food consumption rates.” This means that during the bitterest cold of the year in Korea in the midst of strong icy winds from Siberia bringing temperatures down to a daily average low of −13 °C and a high of −3 °C, 12 million innocents in North Korea will be suffering from hunger. The government food ration in North Korea is 300 grams of food, i.e., about two medium-size potatoes. So the sanctions are well-timed indeed for maximum suffering.

We are being told over and over that North Koreans are “secretive.” What are “our” governments, i.e., those of the UN Command, doing about that secretiveness? They are pressuring Beijing to shut down North Korean businesses. In other words, we are shutting down communication and all economic exchanges with them, establishing a pirate-like siege on their country. Does this make sense—that the best way to solve the problem is to cut off communications, cease doing business, and freeze/starve the civilian population to death? That is what the response of the UN means in diplomatic terms. As Winston Churchill once said, “To jaw-jaw always is better than to war-war.”

Among the 17 member nations of the UN Command, the only state with roots in that part of the world at the time of the Korean War, who would have had to live with the consequences of a divided country and continued civil war, was South Korea. But South Korea’s blood-thirsty dictator President Rhee had on his side the US as well as the other 16 member states of the UN Command, so the chances of his winning the entire Peninsula were high. As for Japan, it was under US Occupation during most of the War, but it played the role of an “unsinkable aircraft carrier” for USAF bombers, so in that sense it served the UN Command side. On the whole, the UN Command states stand to lose little and possibly even gain if it comes to war and the UN in general has a dark history with Korea, so one cannot expect fairness from them.

Conclusion

The Moon-Putin Plan not only has the potential to radically alter the current global system by setting up an alternative economic and cooperative Asian trading block where mutual aid takes precedence over old enmities but it is also one of the few options on the table that involves a pragmatic and peaceful alternative to Washington’s violent and greedy Open Door Policy. The Moon-Putin Plan must be worrisome for the Pentagon since it has the potential to end that long-standing ideology, the one that has driven humanity into this crisis.

The current crisis can be resolved by nuclear armageddon, or by a peaceful solution that brings about a new geopolitical order. There is no middle ground.  There is no room for appeasers of any kind, whether they be UN and government types or left-to-liberal intellectuals and activists. This is one of those moments in history when we must stand up and be counted. Must we repeat the words of Winston Churchill to Britain’s Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain? “You were given the choice between war and dishonour. You chose dishonour and you will have war.”

The Cold Chill of Reality Returns to Italy

Tom Gill

The prosecco and panettone are finished, the befana has delivered her gifts. Natale is over. For millions of Italians the cold chill of reality has returned. The powers that be are trying to keep the mood music upbeat as the New Year starts. After a long economic winter, it is all going in the right direction on the economy and jobs, say the national and international media. But people are not feeling any thaw. Italy remains a deeply divided and disillusioned nation, full of fears for the future.

Italy is indeed riding somewhat of a rebound in the Eurozone economy but it remains fragile and the foundations are even weaker. A million jobs have been created the past four years ago – but they are mostly low paid and insecure, thanks to hire and fire labour reforms that came into force in February 2014. Youth unemployment is 36%, the third highest in Europe, after Spain and Greece. Growth is the highest since 2010 – but 1.7% is nothing to write home about. Italians are still materially worse off than a decade ago. The absolute poor – those unable to purchase a basket of basic goods and services – has soared 3 million to 4.7 million over the past 10 years. Wages have been kept back, and over the past year have fallen behind cost of living rises. On almost every socio-economic indicator, the south trails way behind. To take just one: GDP per capita in the mezzogiorno it is 44% lower than the rest of the country, and the gap is widening. But there are winners. The same as always. The owners of capital gobbled up 16 billion euros in dividends, according to the most recent annual figures from the Bank of Italy (a total of 45 billion euros since 2014). The millionaires club added 10% to its membership in 2016. Credit Suisse estimates there’s now close to 1.3 million with assets of seven figures or more. The richest 1% now account for 25% of the nation’s wealth.

In a healthy democracy, for the ‘left behind’ elections offer hope for better days ahead. But both the economy and the body politic of Italy are very sick. Polls are due in early March. The over-riding narrative is that a new electoral law – removing a bonus in seats for the winning party – will result in no clear winner, leading to political instability. A return to the bad old days, it is said. But while Italy has had 64 governments since 1946 it managed an ‘economic miracle’ that projected it from a war-torn economic laggard into the big league of wealthy manufacturing nations.

The main issue today is what parties and what programmes will feature in the next government. The fall of the Berlin Wall and the Tangentopoli corruption scandals put an end to the Christian Democrats and Italian Communist Party that respectively ruled and opposed within the mostly civilising constraints of the Cold War until the early 1990s. Today, the global capitalist gloves are off, and the ballot papers in Italy will be dominated by right-wing populist and otherwise politically confused forces that are now spreading like wildfire across the West.

Yet again, there’s the Forza Italia party of billionaire tax fraud and four times prime minister Silvio Berlusconi who first entered politics 24 years ago. Although his conviction means he is not able to stand for parliament, the 81-year-old is confident he pull off another coup with a hand-picked front man as PM. The 81-year-old media mogul’s on-off allies and main competitors on the right since the mid-1990s, the nasty League, led by Matteo Salvini, are bullish too. Italy’s original anti-immigrant party, they have left their secessionist roots behind and now have national ambitions (hence “Northern” has been dropped from the name).

There’s the other Matteo (Renzi) and his Democrats, which has been leading the outgoing government and includes former communists and christian democrats. Renzi (think Tony Blair or Emmanuel Macron) was PM for nearly 3 years until December 2016 and is hoping for a comeback. His chief achievements were to slash labour rights but he badly misjudged things when he sought – and failed – to bulldoze the Italian constitution, the Magna Carta that was fingered by American bankers as a block on completing the corporate takeover of Europe’s fourth largest economy.

Then there’s the Five Star movement, the frontrunner, but not by much. A pirate style party founded 9 years ago by comedian and blogger Beppe Grillo whose promise of shaking up Italian politics failed to deliver. Its maverick leader, stubborn focus on corruption, and refusal to do deals with other parties helped it win 100 seats in the lower house and power in a number of cities. But with a haphazard mix of right and left policies, its parliamentary opposition and performance locally has mostly been weak and ineffectual. In Rome, it has suffered the humiliation of sleaze in Mayor Virginia Raggi’s administration.

Immigration will likely to be a top issue with all three main parties taking a hard line, including the once dovish Democrats. When Paolo Gentiloni took over from Renzi as PM a year ago he saw it as his top priority to slow migration to Italy: half a million migrants had arrived in the previous three years, more than the population of Florence. He struck a dodgy deal with the Libyans. This slashed arrivals of those fleeing war and collapse in Africa and the Middle East but  left huge numbers of men, women and children at the mercy of slavers and torturers. The Democrats have also joined the rest on the matter of the children to immigrants’ who were already on Italian soil. Renzi and Gentiloni formally supported the idea but last month Democrats failed to turn up in sufficient numbers to a crucial vote on granting citizenship in the last days of the outgoing parliament. The Five Star movement – which over the years has wavered between a League-style xenophobia to more liberal positions – failed to show at all.

The relationship with Europe, in what was once a bulwark of the EU, will be a major issue too. Studies and polls earlier this year showed only around half of Italians back the euro and just 17 percent of Italians said they were satisfied with the direction the EU, half the EU-average.

The League, Five Star and Forza Italy have flip-flopped on the issue of membership of the common Euro currency but all have talked of launching a parallel currency to try and mitigate some of its lethal economic effects. Salvini’s plan is for 70 billion euros worth of small denomination, interest-free bonds to be issued by the Treasury to firms and individuals owed money by the state as payment for services or as tax rebates. They could then be used as money to pay taxes and buy any services or goods provided by the state, including, for example, petrol at stations run by state-controlled oil company ENI. For the League this is to prepare for Italexit. For the other two parties, it is more of a bargaining tool to force Brussels to loosen the Europe’s draconian budgetary rules that impose austerity on Euro states.

Berlusconi, and the Five Star at least, like Le Pen in France, are currently backpeddling on talk of Euro-rupture. Five Star once promised a referendum on membership but shortly after taking over the Five Star in the autumn Luigi Di Maio declared loyalty to the EU, arguing that a popular vote on euro membership was now a ‘last resort’, if Europe didn’t play ball. Berlusconi, replaced by former European Commissioner and Bilderberg member Mario Monti 2011 as his tenure as PM (replete with sex scandals and a sovereign debt crisis) threatened the entire European project, is trying to position himself as a safe pair of hands. Laughable as that is, he’s playing on fears of Salvini and the smaller Fratelli d’Italia (Brothers of Italy) party, who are most closely connected with Benito Mussolini’s political heritage and who now have many like-minded counterparts in high places in various European capitals.

There’s also been efforts among the main parties to show, after years of anti-worker ‘reforms’, that they do care. Both Five Star and Forza Italia are proposing versions of a basic universal income. De Maio plans a ‘citizenship income’ of 780 euros a month for nine million people. Never to be outdone, Berlusconi has followed suit with a plan for a monthly ‘dignity income’ of 1,000 euros . (Italy currently lacks a minimum wage). Neither pledge – costing around 84 to 157 billion euros respectively –  is credible without a significant a significant break from European budgetary constraints, or a significant rise in tax income. A comprehensive wealth tax has long been ducked by the main parties and no party has pledged to do anything serious about the zillions lost in evasion and avoidance. This is of course unsurprising when it comes to Silvio, who clearly is disinclined to pay them and is once again floating cuts in taxes.

The truth is none of the main parties are on the side of the 99%. The appearance of Grillo’s successor, De Maio, at the annual meeting of bankers and top business executives in Cernobbio, near Lake Como, in September was a reminder that the business casta (as opposed to the political establishment it has long raged against) will be safe in his hands. With the Democrats and Forza Italia in alliance – formal or implicit – for years, a recent change in the statutes of Five Star to lift its ban on party political alliances (hailed as a healthy bit of realism) actually signals even less choice at the ballot box.

Some are investing hopes in a left splinter of the Democrats – Liberi e Uguali (Free and Equal People). But among the leaders are some of the chief architects (ex-PM Massimo D’Alema) of the once great communist party’s morphing into a cheerleader of neo-liberalism. It also includes former Renzi government ministers (Pier Luigi Bersani). Moreover, Liberi e Uguali has already indicated it is prepared to team up with the Democrats. Voters opting for them – as with similar austerity-lite initiatives and tie-ups with centrist forces in the past – will be in for yet more betrayals and disillusionment.

Potere al Popolo or Power to the People, is a more serious proposition for those wanting a left turn , precisely because it is not seeking a quick root to power, at any cost, but aims to build a new movement rooted in labour and social struggles.

Founded mid-December, Power to the People is backed by the Cobas unions, labour organisations independent from the three great union confederations that have been organising some of the most exploited workers, and a variety of grassroots protest and social movements. It has also enjoys support from the self-managed social centres – centri sociali – like Naples’ Je so pazzo. Two of the more significant elements of a much-diminished communist diaspora, Communist Refoundation and the Italian Communist Party, have also endorsed the project. And for activists and voters on the left who successfully rallied against Renzi’s attempt on the constitution a year ago it provides a political platform that’s an alternative to the League and Five Star that led that battle.

Power to the People is highly unlikely to break through the minimum 3% needed to get any parliamentary seats. But supporters feel it could eventually become Italy’s answer to Melenchon’s La France Insoumise, Spain’s Podemos Unidos and Britain’s Momentum (and Jeremy Corbyn’s revitalised Labour Party).  There is much that is different in each, but this is true in as far as they all seek to combine social movement activism with a serious left project for state power.

Power to the People has pledged to reverse Renzi’s attacks on labour rights, abolish healthcare charges, introduce a wealth tax, reverse privatisations of ‘strategic’ infrastructure, nationalise parts of the finance sector and gradually introduce forms of ‘popular control’. It also has plans to slash military spending and withdraw from NATO. Most significantly, it calls for an exit from the Maastricht and “other neo-liberal” EU treaties. Although not advocating a Brexit-style unilateral break, by signalling the need for a Left Exit from Europe represents a clear shift from the past pro-European positions adopted by Italy’s radical left, including sections of the communist movement. It puts the question of reclaiming national sovereignty – until now championed in Italy and elsewhere almost exclusively by the neo-fascist and nationalist right – centre-ground.

One of the more high profile candidates – all would-be parliamentarians are being chosen by local communities based on their ‘social curriculum’ – is Giorgio Cremaschi. A former leader of the FIOM metalworkers union, unashamed class warrior and long-time campaigner for a Lexit, Cremaschi argues that it is time to give up the ghost on reforming the existing European set up. He says: “The EU is an enemy, and we want to break from it.”

The biggest prize for the new radical left party could be Italy’s youth, the group with the biggest stake in radical change. The highest percentage in the EU not in education, training or work, young Italians are unsurprisingly a huge migrant group: 285,000 fled the country in 2016, more than the number of foreigners who arrived on the peninsula. A No vote in a referendum on EU membership would gain 51% of the under 45s backing, compared to just 26% of the over 45s, according to a recent study. Potere al Popolo’s stance will be tapping a rich seam: one that will otherwise continue to be mined and manipulated, with ever worse consequences, by Salvini, Berlusconi & Co.